Stormy times

Re­al­ity TV star Don­ald Trump meets Stormy Daniels at a celebrity golf tour­na­ment in Lake Tahoe, Cal­i­for­nia. Ac­cord­ing to Daniels, the pair spend the night to­gether, a claim that Trump stren­u­ously de­nies. At the time, Me­la­nia is at home with their four­month-old son, Bar­ron.

2011

Daniels tells In Touch mag­a­zine she’s will­ing to dis­cuss her al­leged sex­ual en­counter with Trump. At the be­hest of the mag­a­zine, she takes a lie de­tec­tor test. The mag­a­zine does not pub­lish the in­ter­view un­til 2018.

Oc­to­ber 2016

Days be­fore the pres­i­den­tial elec­tion, Daniels signs a non-dis­clo­sure agree­ment (NDA) and re­ceives a $130,000 pay­ment that pre­cludes her from pub­licly dis­clos­ing the al­leged 2006 sex­ual en­counter with Trump. The money comes from Michael Co­hen (right), Trump’s per­sonal lawyer at the time.

Jan­uary 2018

The Wall Street Jour­nal re­veals the ex­is­tence of the NDA. Co­hen tells the pa­per that Trump ‘ve­he­mently de­nies any such oc­cur­rence as has Ms Daniels’. Co­hen does not ad­dress the is­sue of the pay­ment, how­ever.

March 2018

Daniels files a law­suit ar­gu­ing that the NDA is in­valid be­cause Trump had not signed it. On

60 Min­utes, she says she has been threat­ened to keep quiet, claim­ing that in 2011, she was ap­proached by a man in a Las Ve­gas car park who told her to, ‘Leave Trump alone.’ She later re­leases a com­pos­ite sketch of the man; Trump tweets, ‘A sketch years later about a nonex­is­tent man. A to­tal con job.’

April 2018

Trump de­nies know­ing about the $130,000 pay­ment and tells re­porters that he doesn’t know where the money came from or why it was paid. ‘You’ll have to ask Michael Co­hen. Michael is my at­tor­ney.’ Daniels sues Trump over the ‘defam­a­tory’ tweet, say­ing it ac­cuses her of ‘com­mit­ting a se­ri­ous crime’ – namely, falsely claim­ing a per­son threat­ened her.

May 2018

Rudy Gi­u­liani, the for­mer mayor of New York City and now one of Trump’s lawyers, ad­mits to Fox News’ Sean Han­nity that Trump re­paid Co­hen for the $130,000 paid to Daniels. Trump later con­firms this through a se­ries of tweets (right).

July 2018

Daniels is ar­rested in a strip club in Colum­bus, Ohio, for al­legedly touch­ing three un­der­cover de­tec­tives. Charges are dropped 24 hours later.

Au­gust 2018

Co­hen pleads guilty to eight crim­i­nal counts in­clud­ing tax fraud, bank fraud and cam­paign fi­nance vi­o­la­tions dur­ing the 2016 pres­i­den­tial elec­tion cam­paign, as part of a deal that in­cludes jail time. Co­hen says he paid off two women at Trump’s ‘di­rec­tion’ to si­lence them be­fore the elec­tion and ad­mits that the pay­ments were il­le­gal. He is due to be sen­tenced in De­cem­ber.

Septem­ber 2018

Trump and Co­hen say they don’t in­tend to en­force the NDA and ask Daniels to drop her law­suit re­gard­ing its va­lid­ity.

Oc­to­ber 2018

Daniels’ me­moir Full Dis­clo­sure is pub­lished. Later, it’s an­nounced that Michael Avenatti, her lawyer, has se­cured a de­po­si­tion with Co­hen on 13 De­cem­ber, fol­low­ing his sen­tenc­ing. It will give Avenatti the chance to ask Co­hen di­rect ques­tions about what Trump knew about the NDA and the $130,000 pay­ment. Daniels’ ‘non-ex­is­tent man’ defama­tion law­suit is thrown out by a fed­eral judge. Trump tweets: ‘Great, now I can go af­ter Horse­face and her 3rd rate lawyer in the Great State of Texas. She will con­firm the let­ter she signed! She knows noth­ing about me, a to­tal con!’